Saturday, December 8, 2018

“Abrupt climate change is careening out of control, as
the impacts of dramatic polar ice melt are given short shrift… Not a lot
of new land is being made, and much of what remains is tawdry remnants
of their former productive glory… And the middle class and political
moderation are fading away. It is difficult to imagine how this can end
in anything but utter and total collapse.” — Dr. Glen Barry

We are all in this together

After decades of writing essays highlighting global ecosystem
collapse, I haven’t had much to say lately. That’s not meant to suggest
that I don’t care, the threats to our very being have diminished, or
that I am not still taking action for Earth.

But as the World comes to an end, I just don’t have much new to say.

Over the years I have written hundreds of essays. Recently my thoughts were about as poignantly put as I am able in The Ecology Ethic and Absolute Radical Green Freedom.
There my central theses of all these years can be found: Earth is dying
from ecosystem loss and climate change, only a profound cultural
transition can save us, and economic decline, mass migration, and the
rise of fascism are indicators of looming global ecological collapse.

But as I age I have become more pragmatic. Very few societal changes
have come about until the elite see it is in their interest and embrace
change out of the need for self-preservation. I am working hard to
connect with and understand global economics, looking for ways to build
bridges between deep ecology and sustainable commerce. Thus I work a
gratifying day job in finance to pay for my decades of past activism.

Clearly things are worsening ecologically, economically, and
socially. Abrupt climate change is careening out of control, as the
impacts of dramatic polar ice melt are given short shrift. A relatively
large amount of heat is required to melt ice. Once the “air
conditioning” provided by this ice is gone, extra heat will dramatically
warm oceans and land, orders of magnitude beyond the calamitous
warming already occurring.

Not a lot of new land is being made, and much of what remains is
tawdry remnants of their former productive glory. Large naturally
evolved ecosystems that power the biosphere are almost gone. The
majority of the human family continues to focus upon serving invisible
ghosts in the sky and buying more things, rather than concerning
themselves with sustaining their shared habitat and thus community
well-being.

Global economic inequity has reached obscene levels. A sizeable
minority lives in cocooned techno-splendor, dying from over-consumption;
as the majority barely gets by, many scrounging a miserable existence
from industrially plundered environments. And the middle class and political moderation are fading away.

It is
difficult to imagine how this can end in anything but utter and total
collapse.

How long before the have-nots come to take what they need from those
that have-so-much extra? Facebook friends will not be there to save you.

As we invest consider taking long positions in land, water, air, and
food; and shorting fossil fuels, armaments, and spying. By doing so
together we sustain a just, equitable, and free Earth; and we may
benefit personally from funding solutions to our existential threats.

I do not think it is possible or necessary to seek perfection. But
there is so much we can do individually and together to dramatically
reduce the impact upon a sick Earth. Drive and fly, eat meat, and buy
stuff way less. And find community, make peace, and share way more.

Recommit to humanity’s continual quest for self-improvement. Basic
advances in the human condition such as slavery, racism, sexism, and
militarism which nearly ended are once again threats due to profound
ignorance, sloth, and greed.

We are all in this together. Resist the coming new Dark Age through love and connectedness with nature and fellow beings.

The three billion plus year old naturally evolved Earth is a
masterpiece. The works of the hairless monkey with opposable thumbs are
profoundly brilliant. We must continue our evolution, and doing so
requires returning to our animalness, and relearning the most basic rule
of all life: not fouling the nest in which you live.

Often I imagine a peaceful, thriving, loving humanity living enmeshed
within rewilded nature abounding with old forests, rich gardens, and
wildlife. I beseech you to make love not war, advancement not profit,
equity not misery, ecology not ruin, justice not elitism, liberty not
authoritarianism, respect not intolerance, knowledge not ignorance; and
once again together strive for shared betterment.

Not sure how new this was. But I guess I had something to say after all.

New York, New York (July 31, 2018) – Environmental non-profit
EcoInternet has today launched a new ecological search engine based upon
cutting edge machine learning, data science, and big data technologies.
Data tools typically used for finance and business are being applied
for the first time to integrating the full body of global ecological
knowledge in order to facilitate policies sufficient to avoid abrupt
climate change, continued natural ecosystem loss, and ultimately
biosphere collapse (1).

The new “Biosphere News Search” site at http://search.ecointernet.org/
tracks global climate and environmental news, as well as related issues
as varied as rainforest conservation, sustainable agriculture,
indigenous rights, and human trafficking. The best ecology news content
from tens of thousands of news sources are continuously identified 24/7,
algorithmically rated, networked on social media(2), and loaded into
the new biosphere search engine.

“As Earth’s one shared biosphere is being pummeled by abrupt climate
change and ecosystem collapse, EcoInternet is thrilled to unveil the
fruits of two years of research and development into information systems
to help provide solutions to these cataclysmic threats. The Biosphere
News Search continuously finds, integrates, and amplifies the best
global ecological knowledge using machine learning and big data
technologies (which can scale indefinitely). The system is learning
about the types of solutions known by experts, and desired by the
public, and is constantly improving its results,” explains Dr. Glen
Barry(3), President of EcoInternet.

EcoInternet and predecessors have a long history of using information
technology and the Internet for environmental conservation, dating to
the late 1980s from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. For decades Dr.
Barry has pioneered ecological advocacy and science on the Internet,
work widely regarded by others as visionary. He was among, if not the
first, blogger and news aggregator, sharing forest conservation content
since the early 1990s. EcoInternet has initiated and participated in
hundreds of successful community and indigenous conservation campaigns,
while pioneering environmental search since the late 1990s. After a few
years of concentrated learning and training in emerging data
technologies, EcoInternet has recently entirely retooled their computer
systems, which had been initially constructed as part of Dr. Barry’s PhD
research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The current Phase 1 Biosphere News Search
makes all global climate and environment news content searchable; with
sources running the full gamut of news agencies, NGOs, community groups,
and scientific bodies. Nearly a thousand articles are gathered,
networked, and made searchable a day. We are now raising funds to
complete our work on the new search engine by polishing the news content
aggregator and the search engine’s graphic presentation. Work has
already begun on creating a Google-like web search of all the best
reviewed scientific and educational information on rainforests, oceans,
agriculture, water, ecosystems, climate and related issues available on
the Internet. In coming months EcoInternet expects to release an
Internet wide ecology search engine and will also unveil a revamped
ecological action network. Partnerships and sponsorship opportunities
are desired.

“The global ecological system is collapsing and dying as human
industrial growth overwhelms the climate and ecosystems. We urgently
need to integrate knowledge regarding ecological problems and their
solutions — from the local to the global scale — to inform advocacy and
policy actions sufficient to maintain a habitable planet. Future phases
of EcoInternet’s Earth IT Project will organize the most important
global ecological data sets into a ‘Global Ecology Data Vault’ using
cutting edge data warehousing techniques not yet applied to global
ecological sustainability,” says Dr. Barry.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Decades of ignoring the converging crises of climate change,
ecosystem loss, nationalism, and inequity are reaching their logical
conclusion as Europe and America are threatened with inundation by
desperate peoples. Not all who wish to come will be able to be housed,
and certainly not those arriving illegally, without pulling down host
societies. Yet we must hold onto our humanity and work for global
justice and ecological sustainability. It is the rich nation’s
responsibility to stop ravaging developing nations’ environments, and
learn to share including providing massive development aid in place. Or
the biosphere collapses and we all die after enduring a dark era of
unbearable authoritarian fascism.

Mass destabilizing migration is what you get when
religion tells you to have ever more children. You get mass unruly
migration when a handful of individuals have seized half of Earth’s
wealth as billions live in abject poverty on a couple dollars a day. The
inevitable outcome of clearance of natural forests, fouling of water,
and exponential growth in human population and total consumption is
ecocidal mass migration. — Dr. Glen Barry

Illegal immigration is, well, illegal. And it is not sustainable.
Though absolute immigration numbers rise and fall at any given moment,
the trend is clear that a variety of crises are leading globally to an
unprecedented level of dislocation from people’s traditional homes. The
days of verdant sparsely populated paradises that the dispossessed could
flee to after devastating their own lands are long gone. At nearly 8
billion human super predators and counting Earth is fully occupied and
then some.

In fact, the global biosphere is collapsing and dying. What we are
witnessing at affluent states’ borders illustrates long anticipated
limits to growth, the irrefutable consequences of inequitable
over-popuation, and the logical conclusion of being in a terminal state
of ecological overshoot for decades. Large swathes of formerly
productive land have been laid to waste by the combined forces of too
many people, global warming, natural ecosystem destruction, and
over-intensive land utilization. This ecological decline combined with
centuries of neo-colonialist resource thievery has made large areas of
the world ungovernable.

Continued mass movements of refugees and economic migrants from the
periphery into the world’s prosperous regions reflect the convergence of
a perfect storm. Abrupt climate change, ecosystem collapse, grotesque
inequity, continued neo-colonialism, nationalistic perma-war, and first
and foremost over-population are all reflected in the streams of
refugees to Europe and America. There are nearly 70 million refugees who
have been forcefully displaced from their homes worldwide and many more
choosing voluntarily to migrate in search of economic opportunity.

The imperial powers cannot house all the citizens of failed states
and ecosystems (even though much of the suffering is at their hands).
Trying will overrun liberal democracy and lead to authoritarian
responses. Yet we must not lose our humanity and turn our backs on
suffering of others. Our best response to mass migration is to stop
destroying developing nations’ environments as the foundation of our
economic system, dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and
sum consumption immediately, discontinue our state of perma-war to
ensure easy access to resources, and provide sizeable development aid to
support meeting basic human needs in place. This includes a well-funded
program of massive ecosystem restoration that will employ large
numbers. And educating all girls as well as boys, as provide free birth
control, is long overdue to stabilize and then reduce human numbers.

Europe and America sharing their ill-gotten wealth with other nations
to provide for security, environment, education, justice, and jobs; to
make it worthwhile to stay in place, is the only immigration solution
that will work. There is no other way to shared well-being.

Far more is at stake than providing for economic advancement and
safety from persecution for those fleeing failed states and ecosystems,
and legitimate (though often needlessly racist) desires to maintain
existing cultural heritages and jobs. Continued exploitation of cheap
migrant labor is not justification for abdicating the rule of law or
allowing haphazard flows of human beings into an area where many do not
welcome the influx. The future of humanity is threatened as we are
poised for a final apocalyptic collapse into nothingness unless we learn
to equitably share, sustain ecosystems, and make peace.

Mass migration overwhelming America and Europe is a symptom of all
that ails Western pseudo-democratic capitalism. In a globalized world
everyone shares problems. For centuries Western thought has subjugated
and persecuted other cultures, as our ravenous appetite for resources
laid to ruin natural ecosystems. Developing nations’ landscapes are
strewn with the wreckage of the over-developed world’s resource
gluttony. Ironically some of the most culturally advanced political
institutions and works of human self-expression have arisen from this
thievery. Despite the over-developed world never having quite lived up
to the false exceptionalist rhetoric, there is much that is good and
noble in tolerant societies based upon free self-expression that must be
maintained to avoid another totalitarian dark age.

Near zero tolerance may well be required to make clear that rampant
illegal migration is not acceptable. But not President Trump’s seizing
of children from their parents, which is clearly fascism and crosses the
line. Racism and demagoguery will not turn back the tide of
demographics. And there is nothing progressive in sending the message
that all the world’s downtrodden are welcome to overrun some of Earth’s
last prosperous and relatively well governed regions.

There are few things as sad as serial child-abuser Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus,
proposing legislation to end enforcement of immigration law given his
history of traveling to Costa Rica to sexually abuse kids (wonder if any
victims became migrants, a lot easier to prey upon if they are here).
Neither far-right authoritarian thuggery or far-left sanctimonious
elitism will resolve immigration concerns, the answer lies in the
political center.

While believing firmly in the ideal of the unity of the human race
and global citizenry, no one’s interests are served by continued
acceptance of the cycle of land degradation and poor governance leading
to widespread movement into other areas to repeat yet again the ecocidal
pattern dismantling the shared global environment. More people
embracing the Western throw-away culture of over-consumption is not the
answer. As signs of biosphere collapse emerge we are each called upon to
make sustainable livelihoods in our own bioregions as there is truly
nowhere to flee.

Rarely if ever have the pundits and politicians failed so miserably
to diagnose a social issues’ roots as they have done with immigration.
The very same people who want to build the wall not only deny the
scientific truths of climate change and environmental decline, they are
loathe to spend a relative pittance on helping neighboring nations
develop sustainably so there is no need to flee. America and Europe have
long pillaged other nations and the bill is due. The U.S. spends 1% of
its budget or about $50 billion on foreign aid, much of that military
assistance. While at the same time in 2017 America spent $610 billion on
the military. It is arguable which has kept us safer.

Mass destabilizing migration is what you get when religion tells you
to have ever more children. You get mass unruly migration when a handful
of individuals have seized half of Earth’s wealth as billions live in
abject poverty on a couple dollars a day. The inevitable outcome of
clearance of natural forests, fouling of water, and exponential growth
in human population and total consumption is ecocidal mass migration.

Desperate people seeking to survive have to go somewhere. In a world
of abrupt climate change and collapsed ecosystems anyone of us could
become a refugee at any moment. Yay but for the grace of Gaia there go
you and I. If we leave no options for recovery and self-advancement,
desperation will lead to mass floods of humanity at our door step, and a
state of anarchy and war which cannot be won.

All children are going to die if we don’t change.

We can respond with inhumane fascist authoritarianism, or welcome the
flood as we willfully descend into chaos. Or we can hold onto our
humanity and way of life, and together get at the root causes of
inequitable injustice, while securing our borders. We can expand our
foreign aid by several billion, or spend orders of magnitudes more
building walls, to avoid the Western civilization we cherish from being
overwhelmed. Perhaps we should do both.

I have experienced first hand the cultural uncomfortableness
associated with the unregulated influx of refugees. As my wife and I
raised a family in Madison, Wisconsin, a large family of migrants
occupied the house across the street from us in our quiet residential
neighborhood. At least a couple dozen people lived in the small house,
and half a dozen cars were put on blocks to fix in the street and
driveway. On numerous occasions I asked the new arrivals to not do their
auto repair on the streets, to no avail. One late night one of the cars
being worked upon exploded and nearly burnt down our home with us
asleep inside. No apologies were forthcoming. From this one coincidental
incident, I understand the unease as large numbers of outsiders with
different social norms flood our neighborhoods. This has nothing to do
with race — I have been in a multi-cultural relationship for all my
adult life — it is about illegal entry into the country followed by an
unwillingness to accept and abide by cultural norms. And an
understanding that not everyone that wants to come to America can be
accommodated without diminishing and possibly destroying the greatest
imperfect country in human history.

We must be under no illusions. Much of the concern about immigration
is thinly veiled racism bereft of understanding regarding the ecological
and socio-political underpinnings of mass human movement. Yet real
concerns regarding the environmental, social, economic, and cultural
impacts of illegal migration exist. And it is clearly impossible for the
2 billion people globally living in abject poverty to be housed within
the developing world without entirely destroying political stability and
economic well-being.

Unless we are willing to take broad-based measures to share, cut
emissions, nurture ecosystems, and stop murdering each other for
resources; Europe and America will be overrun by migrant hordes and fall
into the bad sort of anarchy. Without centers of prosperity it is very
unlikely we will achieve the technology, shared well-being, and
political will to avoid abrupt climate change and biosphere collapse. We
get at the root causes of why so many people are fleeing failed lands
and governments and help remedy those factors, or all of Western
civilization (such as it is) and our one shared environment are lost
forever.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

On the rise of high-tech global authoritarianism, as freedom
and ecosystems fail, and Amerika falls into Russian and Chinese style
tyranny

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing
itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique
that has yielded to base instinct.” – The White Rose, Hitler Resistance
Pamphlet

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” – George Orwell, 1984

“The world is converging on trans-national state terror as the biosphere collapses.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders – Deep Ecology Essays
By Dr. Glen Barry

Big brother is not your friend

As a child I remember the awe and pride of learning the history of
human advancement. From the realization of the rights of man, and the
ending of the slave trade, to the sharing of wealth with workers, onward
to constant — albeit incremental — progress on greater racial and
gender equality, as we stepped back from the brink of nuclear war,
embraced international law and human rights, and began addressing global
environmental issues; the human condition was always improving.

What a wonderful time to be alive, I thought as a young man working
for rainforests, indigenous rights, and climate. Surely my generation
would complete the journey to a just, equitable, peaceful, and
sustainable world. The human family was inevitably evolving to a higher
level of consciousness and thus shared well-being.

Now in my middle age, I realize how fragile and impermanent are all
advancess in the human condition in the face of sloth, ignorance, and
envy. Full blown global authoritarian fascism is descending upon the
Earth as China, Russia and America reject human rights and
environmentalism. In a series of largely bloodless coups, charlatan
demagogues have seized power, rolled back democratic progress,
stonewalled necessary measures to pursue global ecological
sustainability, and are thus committing treason against Earth and her
peoples. A small yet concentrated global oligarchy controls over half of
Earth’s wealth, and are harnessing big data technologies to forcefully
maintain their advantage, blocking all efforts to achieve global
justice, equity, and sustainability.

Centuries of human progress are being jettisoned to placate the
masses with ever more shiny trinkets, as the rich ensconce themselves in
unimaginable opulent splendor far removed from failing ecosystems.
Summary arrests, show trials, abrupt climate change, routine spying, degraded environments,
centralized authority, minority scapegoating, growing inequity, drone
murder, and perma-war are pervasive. In general the rejection of global
human rights and environmental protections have become the new
international norm.

The world is converging on trans-national state terror as the biosphere collapses.

The American, Chinese and Russian political systems are increasingly
characterized by authoritarian tyranny under the guise of various
nationalistic window-dressings. In each surging inequitable consumption
destroys the ecosystems and atmosphere that are our shared habitat.
Fascist surveillance states fueled by faux-populism are all the rage, as
freedom and Earth let out their last gasping breath, before together we
fall into nothingness.

We are being led in chains to our miserable deaths. The end of being is at hand.

THE NOT SO GREAT POWERS

China is a foul ecocidal failed state whose repulsive political
system is rife with corruption, tyranny, state thievery, voracious
growth, and an unsustainable appetite for resources that consumes global
ecosystems. Past glories of ancient ancestors do little to soften the
brutal savagery of a hyper surveillance state bent upon absolute control
through dehumanization. The hunger of over a billion potential
consumers, believing in little else but having more, alone threatens to
collapse and pull down the biosphere with it at any time. With Xi, yet
another tyrannical tin-pot dictator has arisen, the cult of personality
and mass murder are sure to follow.

Russia is a constantly under-achieving and envious failed state which
seeks to get ahead through nefarious means and cults of personality
rather than substantively creating anything of value for its citizens or
the global system. Whatever contributions have been made to human
history in the past, Russia has become a perpetual basket-case of
poverty, mediocrity, and state violence. Putin would nuke the world
because of hurt pride. There are no notions of human rights, environmentalism, or progress in this Potemkin nation. When the oil is gone Russia will once again
collapse into serfdom, but not before the current state of impotent
insecurity unleashes war upon the West in support of murderous
nationalism.

In America a treasonous regime has seized power, usurping the rule of
law, and threatening global ruin at any moment – perhaps over a slight
on Twitter. A once proud nation has become a belligerent, insolent
failed state that keeps itself drugged and amused to avoid addressing
the harm their over-consumption and militarism wage upon the environment
and global well-being. What was once Earth’s last great hope is now
shooting up on heroin and guns as fortunes fade as the easy resources
are gone and the environment and social cohesion collapse. A series of
stolen elections have installed a decadent self-serving oligarchy,
placing in the tiny hands of UnPresident Trump (a narcissistic
authoritarian madman) the button to impulsively destroy the world many
times over. The Trumpkin cult is bereft of personality.

False, competing claims of exceptionalism by America, Russia, and
China share one thing in common – they each consider it their birthright
to destroy the world if they are not perceived as worthy of great
nation status (deservedly or not) and if they can’t have more of
everything regardless of the fate of others. Bots, learned machines, and drones keep the riffraff under constant surveillance and control lest they realize they are adrift upon a dying planet whose imminent collapse under the weight of inequitable over-population makes them expendable.

No person is worthy of such power

In triplicate, self-absorbed political charlatans hold the power to
push a button and launch nuclear weapons that will destroy the world.
These ethically dubious individuals can do so at any time based upon
fits of rage, hurt feelings, or other human inadequacies multiplied by
their false sense of importance. Such power in the hands of
authoritarian megalomaniacs in service to their oligarchies is
unacceptable and must be revoked now through global denuclearization,
demilitarization, and a democratic decentralization of power.

Ever wonder what you would have done as Hitler rose in Germany (or for that matter Stalin or Mao)? Now
you can answer as Trump, Putin, and Xi follow similar paths toward
absolute power and certain yet unknown atrocities to come. Each of these
governments are horrific in terms of lack of commitment, indeed a
shared disdain, for human rights and the environment. At least in
America there is a prospect, at least for now, of a democratic change in
government. Each nation’s peoples continue to largely lead normal and
worthy lives, though they do share culpability for allowing
authoritarianism to emerge unchallenged, and for embracing unsustainable lifestyles that destroy ecosystems. As has been noted throughout
history, trading liberty for security provides neither.

What meaning is there besides various nationalistic myths and more
stuff in post-Modern America, China, and Russia? What is there to
believe in that is noble, equitable, and just? What higher vision for
sublime truth and goodness are to be found among the cheap throw away
consumer goods and blood? How will livelihoods of the masses be
sustained across landscapes whose ecosystems have been decimated to
build mammonist temples as playhouses for the uber-rich?

Only revolutionary social change away from trans-national charlatan
oligarchic demagoguery can save the human family from final enslavement
and mass death before an apocalyptic collapse.
We need a return to a shared sense of basic decency, including a
respect for global human rights, international law, and nature; in order
that we can address existential threats to our continued shared being.

We must seek to return to and remain in our natural condition of absolute freedom and deep greenness.

WHAT HAS BECOME OF AMERICA

The United States of America has become decadent and depraved. Where
once many Americans stood together for human advancement and rights, we have
descended into hateful politics between deceitful extremes. It is
difficult to know which is worse: smug, corrupt, elitist Progressives or
fascist, treasonous, hypocritical Conservatives. The political center
has collapsed, spiraling crises such as climate change and perma-war are
going unaddressed, and the nation is on the verge of breaking apart.

Fellow Americans it’s time to take a good hard look at our country.
How have we become a grotesque caricature far removed from reality?
Amnesty International now places the US in the second tier of democratic
states. We speak of freedom as we enslave others, of liberty as we wage
drone-based perma-war (often murdering innocents), and of
exceptionalism as we regress on virtually every measure of human
well-being.

True lovers of liberty can’t sit by and watch the once greatest
Democracy in the world becoming self-destructive with substance abuse,
homelessness, and guns. Our rapacious appetites have left behind a
filthy environment and a slew of broken people. Deaths attributed to
alcohol, drugs and suicide increase at a record pace. With human
trafficking we are descending back into slavery.

The opioid crisis, school shootings, a state of perma-war, and
Trumpian fascism are all symptoms of the disease that threatens to
destroy the America we all claim to love. We have no shared meaning, no
overarching commitment to anything other than ourselves and our
immediate gratification.
Depression brought on by a sense of meaninglessness pervades the American psyche.

Americans have turned into sullen, self-absorbed, and self-entitled
people. However much we have, we only care about having more. I know
because I am one of these Americans. I too feel a constant nagging
desire to consume more no matter how much I have already. And a sense of
hypocritical outrage over foreign election meddling and military occupation by
others, yet realize these are things our country has done
surreptitiously overseas for years.

The USA has never really lived up to the rhetoric on human rights,
but until recently it has been committed to continued self-improvement,
and its turbulent democracy has nonetheless been the worst form of
government except for all the alternatives. Fascism is on the rise
globally. Putin to Duerte to Xi to Trump. Will America remain the last
beacon of liberal democracy? Or have we become something else, Amerika
perhaps? It is looking precarious as Trump is bent upon destroying
democratic institutions and norms required to maintain liberty.

America’s commitment to freedom, however imperfect, is waning. America: what have we become? Who shall stand for global freedom?

True lovers of American liberty must return to the political center,
and cultivate basic human decency in order that we can address
existential threats to our very being. I am first to admit at times I
have been a vicious troll on the Internet in service to what I believed
to be good causes. However others on the other side thought so as well.

We must take a good hard look at ourselves and our country. And
step back from the precipice, tone down the rhetoric (but not the shared
pursuit of truth), and listen to each other. Good governance requires
making sensible compromises.

It is time to embrace ambitious societal goals. Let's end abject poverty. Stop and reverse destruction of nature. Demobilize our militaries and redirect expenditures to health, education, and jobs. And embrace arts, sport, literature, wildlife, music, and all the other beautiful aspects of human existence. A shared spirituality that acknowledges the holiness of natural creation is long-overdue.

We could be so much better. We are not caring for our children. Or our habitat. Or each other.

We must turn back from becoming sullen, bitter, angry,
self-destructive people. We must care about more than having more. I
know because I am one of these Amerikans.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND NATURE ARE ABSOLUTE, NON-NEGOTIABLE

The natural state of humanity is absolute freedom. Humans have
evolved from the same primordial soup, and share ecological habitat,
with all Earth’s kindred life. Each person, like all organisms, holds an
inherent right to complete autonomy and control over their minds, bodies, and
actions; as long as they do no harm to others and the environment, and
while realizing the consequences of misdeeds.

True liberty can only be achieved and maintained through
continual free thinking and sustained natural ecosystems.

For millennia as early humans settled and population densities
increased, there has been a constant diminution of free will, and growth
of centralized control. From storers of grain determining who ate, to
the rise of royalty, to being indoctrinated with myths that the reward
for suffering injustice was eternal life in paradise, to our present misguided faith that big government will care for us and keep us safe; we have
continually moved away from our true nature.

The past centuries’ advancements in living conditions, political
freedoms, and free thought for some worked to reverse this trend. But
only briefly as a resource constrained world needs complex hierarchical
relations to control the means to allocate what remains.

Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence threaten to
complete the creation of an Orwellian authoritarian nightmare of
constant state surveillance and murder. The benefits that flow from free
thinking in a liberal democracy must not be traded away for a false
sense of security from the nanny state.

Big brother is not your friend.

The necessary policies for sustainability may more easily be achieved
under authoritarian command driven government. But the price of slavery
is not worth it.

Better the human spirit remain untethered than in chains, at any cost.

A call goes out to all global lovers of liberty to resist the rise of
fascism and other forms of despotic control wherever they may be found.
There is no higher calling than free thinking, absolute liberty, and
serving nature. Continued improvement in the human condition requires defending human progress that has been achieved thus far, as together we work for further human advancement by demobilizing the war industry, achieving greater equity, establishing universal human rights, and committing to global ecological sustainability.

We sprang forth from wild natural ecosystems where we fended for
ourselves and our kin with no higher authority than the forest canopy
and stars above. Our better nature which has brought us so much progress
must be rekindled as we return to the garden.

All that really matters in these troubled times is sustaining green liberty before it is too late.